naomi's room opened upon the back veranda, and in quitting it next morning it was not unnatural that she should pause to contemplate the place where so many things had lately happened, which, she felt, must leave their mark upon her life for good or evil. it was here that she might have seen the danger of unreserved sympathy with so sensitive and enthusiastic a nature as that of the piano-tuner. indeed, she had seen it, and made suitable resolutions on the spot; but these she had broken, and wilfully shut her eyes to that danger until the young man had told her, quite plainly enough, that he loved her. nay, she had made him tell her that, and until he did so she had purposely withheld from him the knowledge that she was already engaged. that was the cruel part of it, the part of which she was now most sincerely ashamed. yet some power stronger than her own will had compelled her to act as she had done, and certainly she had determined beforehand to take the first opportunity of severing all ties still existing between herself and monty gilroy. and it was here that she had actually broken off her engagement with him within a few minutes of her announcement of it to hermann engelhardt. still she was by no means pleased with herself as she stepped out into the flood of sunshine that filled the back veranda of a morning, and saw everything as it had been overnight, even to the book she had laid aside open when gilroy rode up. it was lying shut in the self-same spot. this little difference was the only one.

she went round to the front of the house, looking out rather nervously for engelhardt on the way. generally he met her in the front veranda, but this morning he was not there. mrs. potter was laying the breakfast-table, but she had not seen him either. she looked searchingly at her young mistress as she answered her question.

"are you quite well, miss?" she asked at length, without preamble. "you look as though you hadn't slep' a wink all night."

"no more i have," said naomi, calmly.

"good gracious, miss!" cried mrs. potter, clapping down the plate-basket with a jingle. "whatever has been the matter? that nasty toothache, i'll be bound!"

"no, it wasn't a tooth this time. i may as well tell you what it was," added naomi, "since you're bound to know sooner or later. well, then, mr. gilroy has left the station for good, and i am not ever going to marry him. that's all."

"and i'm thankful——"

mrs. potter checked herself with a gulp.

"so am i," said her mistress, dryly; "but it's a little exciting, and i let it keep me awake. you are to pack up his boxes, please, so that i may send them to the township in the spring-cart. but now make haste with the tea, for i need a cup badly, and i'll go and sing out to mr. engelhardt. did you call him, by the way?"

"yes, miss, i called him as usual."

naomi left the breakfast-room, and was absent some three or four minutes. she came back looking somewhat scared.

"i've called him, too," she said, "at the top of my voice. but there's no making him hear anything. i've hammered at his door and at his window, too; both are shut, as if he wasn't up. i do wish that you would come and see whether he is."

a moment later mrs. potter was crossing the sandy yard, with naomi almost treading on her ample skirts until they reached the barracks, which the elderly woman entered alone. no sooner, however, had she opened engelhardt's door than she called her mistress to the spot. the room was empty. it was clear at a glance that the bed had not been slept in.

"if he hasn't gone away and left us without a word!" cried mrs. potter, indignantly.

"i am looking for his valise," said naomi. "where has he generally kept it?"

"just there, underneath the dressing-table. he has taken it with him. there's nothing belonging to him in the room!"

"except that half-crown under the tumbler, which is evidently meant for you. no, mrs. potter, i'm afraid you're right. the half-crown settles it. i should take it if i were you. and now i'll have my breakfast, if you please."

"but, miss, i can't understand——"

"no more can i. make the tea at once, please. a little toast is all that i require with it."

and naomi went slowly back toward the house, but stopped half way, with bent head and attentive eyes, and then went slower still. she had discovered in the sand the print of feet in stockings only. these tracks led up to the veranda, where they ended opposite the sitting-room door, which naomi pushed open next moment. the room wore its ordinary appearance, but the pile of music which engelhardt had brought with him for sale had been removed from the top of the piano to the music-stool; and lying conspicuously across the music, naomi was mortified to find a silk handkerchief of her own, which the piano-tuner had worn all the week as a sling for his arm. she caught it up with an angry exclamation, and in doing so caught sight of some obviously left-handed writing on the topmost song of the pile. she stooped and read:

"these songs for miss pryse, with deep gratitude for all her kindness to hermann engelhardt."

it was a pale, set face that mrs. potter found awaiting her in the breakfast-room when the toast was ready and the tea made. very little of the toast was eaten, and mrs. potter saw no more of her young mistress until the mid-day meal, to which naomi sat down in her riding-habit.

"just wait, mrs. potter," said she, hastily helping herself to a chop. "take a chair yourself. i want to speak to you."

"very good, miss," said the old lady, sitting down.

"i want to know when you last set eyes on sam rowntree."

"let me see, miss. oh, yes, i remember; it was about this time yesterday. he came to the kitchen, and told me he was going to run up a fresh mob of killing-sheep out of top scrubby, and how much meat could i do with? i said half a sheep, at the outside, and that was the last i saw of him."

"he never came near you last night?"

"that he didn't, miss. i was looking out for him. i wanted——"

"you didn't see him in the distance, or hear him whistling?"

"no, indeed i didn't."

"well, he seems to have vanished into space," said naomi, pushing away her plate and pouring out a cup of tea.

"it's too bad," said mrs. potter, with sympathy and indignation in equal parts. "i can't think what he means—to go and leave us alone like this."

"i can't think what mr. chester meant by not telling me that he was gone," remarked naomi, hotly.

"i 'xpect he knew nothing about it, miss. he went off before daylight, him and the two men that come in with the sheep they was to take on to the shed."

"how can you know that?" inquired naomi, with a touch of irritation. her tea was very hot, and she was evidently in a desperate hurry.

"because mr. chester asked me to put his breakfast ready for him overnight; and i did, too, and when i got up at six he'd had it and gone long ago. the teapot was cold. the men had gone, too, for i gave 'em their suppers last night, and they asked for a snack to take before their early start this morning. they must all have got away by five. they wouldn't hardly try to disturb sam so early as all that; so they weren't to know he wasn't there."

"well, he wasn't," said naomi, "and it's disgraceful, that's what it is! here we are without a man on the place, and there are nearly a hundred at the shed! i have had to catch a horse, and saddle it for myself." as she spoke naomi made a last gulp at her hot tea, and then jumped up from the table.

"you are going to the shed, miss?"

"no; to the township."

"ah, that's where you'll find him!"

"i hope i may," said naomi, softly, and her eyes were far away. she was in the veranda, buttoning her gloves.

"i meant sam rowntree, miss."

naomi blushed.

"i meant mr. engelhardt," said she, stoutly. "they are probably both there; but i have no doubt at all about mr. engelhardt. i am going to fetch the mail, but i hope i shall see that young gentleman, too, so that i may have an opportunity of telling him what i think of him."

"i should, miss, i should that!" cried mrs. potter, with virtuous wrath. "i should give him a piece of my mind about his way of treating them that's good and kind to him. i'm sure, miss, the notice you took of that young man——"

"come, i don't think he's treated you so badly," interrupted naomi, tartly. "moreover, i am quite sure that he must have had some reason for going off so suddenly. i am curious to know what it was, and also what he expects me to do with his horse. if he had waited till this morning i would have sent him in with the buggy, and saved him a good old tramp. however, you don't mind being left in charge for an hour or so—eh, mrs. potter? no one ever troubles the homestead during shearing, you know."

"oh, i shall be all right, miss, thank you," mrs. potter said, cheerfully; and she followed naomi out into the yard, and watched her, in the distance, drag a box out of the saddle-room, mount from it, and set off at a canter toward the horse-paddock gate.

but naomi did not canter all the way. she performed the greater part of her ride at a quiet amble, leaning forward in her saddle most of the time, and deciding what she should say to the piano-tuner, while she searched the ground narrowly for his tracks. she had the eagle eye for the trail of man or beast, which is the natural inheritance of all children of the bush. before saddling the night-horse, she had made it her business to discover every print of a stocking sole that had been left about the premises during the night; and there were so many that she had now a pretty definite idea of the movements of her visitor prior to his final departure from the station. he had spent some time in aimless wandering about the moonlit yard. then he had stood outside the kitchen, just where she had left him standing on the night of his arrival; and afterward had crossed the fence, just where they had crossed it together, and steered the very same course through the pines which she had led him that first evening. still in his stockings, carrying his boots in his one hand and his valise under that arm (for she came to a place where he had dropped one boot, and, in picking it up, the valise also), he had worked round to the back veranda, and sat long on the edge, with his two feet in the soft sand, staring out over the scrub-covered, moonlit plain, just as he had sat staring many a time in broad daylight. of all this naomi was as certain as though she had seen it, because it was child's play to her to follow up the trail of his stockinged feet and to sort them out from all other tracks. but it ought to have been almost as easy to trace him in his boots on the well-beaten road to the township, and it was not.

the girl grew uncomfortable as she rode on and on without ever striking the trail; and the cutting sentences which she had prepared for the piano-tuner escaped her mind long before she reached the township, and found, as she now expected, that nobody answering to his description had been seen in the vicinity.

naomi was not the one to waste time in a superfluity of inquiries. she saw in a moment that engelhardt had not been near the place, and a similar fact was even more easily ascertained in the matter of sam rowntree. the township people knew him well. his blue fly-veil had not enlivened their hotel verandas for a whole week. so naomi received her mail-bag and rode off without dismounting. a glimpse which she had caught of a red beard, at the other side of the broad sandy road, and the sound of a well-known voice shouting thickly, added to her haste. and on this journey she never once drew rein until her horse cantered into the long and sharp-cut shadows of the taroomba stables.

as naomi dismounted, mrs. potter emerged from the homestead veranda. the good woman had grown not a little nervous in her loneliness. her looks as she came up were in striking contrast to those of her mistress. the one was visibly relieved; the other had come back ten times more anxious than she had gone away.

"no one been near you, mrs. potter?"

"not a soul, miss. oh, but it's good to see you back! i thought the afternoon was never coming to an end."

"they are neither of them at the township," said naomi, with a miserable sigh.

"nor have they been there at all—neither mr. engelhardt nor sam rowntree!"

mrs. potter cudgelled her poor brains for some—for any—kind of explanation.

"sam did tell me"—she had begun, when she was promptly shut up.

"who cares about sam?" cried naomi. "he's a good bushman; he can take care of himself. besides, wherever he is, sam isn't bushed. but anything may have happened to mr. engelhardt!"

"what do you think has happened?" the old lady asked, inanely.

"how am i to know?" was the wild answer. "i have nothing to go on. i know no more than you do."

yet she stood thinking hard, with her horse still bridled and the reins between her fingers. she had taken off the saddle. suddenly she slipped the reins over a hook and disappeared into the saddle-room. and in a few moments she was back, with a blanched face, and in her arms a packed valise.

"is this mr. engelhardt's?"

mrs. potter took one look at it.

"it is," she said. "yes, it is his!"

"take it, then," said naomi, mastering her voice with difficulty, "while i hunt up his saddle and bridle. if they are gone, all the better. then i shall know he has his horse; and with a horse nothing much can happen to one."

she disappeared again, and was gone a little longer; but this time she came back desperately self-possessed.

"i have found his saddle. his bridle is not there at all. i know it's his saddle, because it's a pretty good one, and all our decent saddles are in use; besides, they all have the station brand upon them. this one has no brand at all. it must be mr. engelhardt's; and now i know exactly what he has done. shall i tell you?"

mrs. potter clasped her hands.

"he has taken his bridle," said naomi, still in a deadly calm, "and he has set out to catch his horse. how he could do such a thing i can't conceive! he knows the run of our horse-paddock no more than you do. he has failed to find his horse, tried to come back, and got over the fence into top scrubby. you don't know what that means! top scrubby's the worst paddock we have. it's half-full of mallee, it's six miles whichever way you take it, and the only drop of water in it is the tank at the township corner. or he may be in the horse-paddock all the time. people who don't know the bush[pg 151] may walk round and round in a single square mile all day long, and until they drop. but it's no good our talking here; wherever he is, i mean to find him."

as she spoke she caught her saddle from the rail across which she had placed it, and was for flinging it on to her horse again, when mrs. potter interposed. the girl was trembling with excitement. the sun was fast sinking into the sand and scrub away west. in half an hour it would be dark.

"and no moon till ten or eleven," said mrs. potter, with sudden foresight and firmness. "you mustn't think of it, miss; you mustn't, indeed!"

"how can you say that? why should you stop me? do you mean me to leave the poor fellow to perish for want of water?"

"my dear, you could do no good in the dark," said mrs. potter, speaking as she had not spoken to naomi since the latter was a little girl. "besides, neither you nor the horse is fit for anything more until you've both had something to eat and drink."

"it's true!"

naomi said this in helpless tones and with hopeless looks. as she spoke, however, her[pg 152] eyes fastened themselves upon the crimson ball just clear of the horizon, and all at once they filled with tears. hardly conscious of what she did or said, she lifted up her arms and her voice to the sunset.

"oh, my poor fellow! my poor boy! if only i knew where you were—if only i could see you now!"